Actually, yes, it does. Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, but I think sports commentators should try to avoid being too biased. Even when it involves riders of their own country. That's one of the few things I can complain about with Sporza: all the attention to Belgian guys, and Gilbert and Boonen foremost.

It makes sense of course, since almost all of their viewers are Belgian, but I would personally prefer a bit more neutral commentary.

There's a difference though between an audience focussed attention angle, and bias, not?

Bias, to me, doesn't mean that a commentator is simply more likely to report on certain events, but that that reporter is more likely to skew the actual reporting in one direction or the other, well beyond the perceptible reality.

I have little problem with commentators who focus more on "their own", as long as what they says still connects with reality. I even prefer sports journalists who can get excited about "their own" (whatever that means). Sporza, for me, falls mostly in this category. Sure, they talk a lot about the Belgians. But on the whole, they talk sense about the Belgians. And the state of the watering holes en-route, etc.

It's the commentators whose reality-filter swing to the full in-a-gadda-da-vida, the moment they get a whiff of their favourite subject, who really get up my nose.

It's the nonsensical hyping that has me throwing heavy objects in the direction of the screen [yes, I have learned to put Kirby on mute, and Lance's retirement is saving me a fortune, given that for far too long, the 2 Ps were the magic voices that came with every broadcast I could get up here].

Eurosport, for a long time, was a godsend, and I don't mind the combo Hammond and Kelly combo at all.

But now the Brits* are no longer just participating, but are actually starting to win and stuff. And suddenly British Eurosport seems to have gotten its hands on a cheap and nasty hype-machine all of its own. I have started to like it a lot less, all the more because they somehow feel obliged to attribute "reasonable chances of winning" to nearly all of them, in just about every race covered. If Wiggins shows up this Vuelta, I am channel-hopping, not by switching stations, but by taking the bloody ferry and crossing it, to watch it from "Europe".

But, to my own shock, there is one type of reporter who I dislike even more. Even if they actually know their crap. To go the full grump: I would save some young puppies from being hurled down a bridge, but only so I could re-use the sack, and swap the puppies for the genuine knowledgeable commentator who is clued-up, but also utterly incapable of injecting banter into their commentary, or uses the type of summary that is narrated to go with the images that we are seeing, as if it was "live" and things "surprise" us, but was actually written long after everyone had crossed the race-line. One of the new-boys was doing that, and and I ended up throwing my TV at a blunt object, as I had a bigger chance of hitting it that way.

Somehow I much prefer Harmon getting the occasional thing wrong to someone like that getting it all "right". Harmon can waffle, and Kelly can and will put him right. And given that most of the time our sport isn't exactly the most "happening" one, if all you can do for hours on end is talk "insider tech".... I have discovered I prefer Harmon (with 'an expert'), to my own surprise.   


*= loosely defined as anything who speakka-da-language and has a passport from any of the former territories that we still don't really count as proper countries - in other words, anything that Sky would brand British.

FtP that was amazing. I feel like I just climbed off a condemned rollercoaster. ;D

Aside from P&P who are fuvking awful! I'll don't really mind who it is.

i have to say it is a real shame for me

as a kid growing up without the massive choice of viewing now available, all i ever got to see on TV was the Tour de france each year. anything else i had to rely on magazines for information (well ok we got some city centre crits and the milk race but you know what i mean)

and the tour de france on channel 4 meant P and P. For me Phil Ligget was cycling. and i really loved hearing his voice.

I now listen to this blathering old man talking rubbish, repeating what the other commentator has said, getting riders wrong and think what happened to the 'voice of cycling'. I had been putting it down to age, thinking maybe the years had not been kind. but thinking back now, as a kid we only got 30 minute highlight packages of each stage. so all i saw was the highlight commentary and not the 4 hours of drivel we get now. maybe he was always this bad but i never knew.

but i have to say, the realisation that Phil Liggett is a rubbish commentator has damaged a small part of my childhood memories.

Clearly Sean Kelly is not the most popular analyst/co-commentator but I reckon he's OK.
Keeping quite when you have nothing of interest to say is better than inane droning drivel like some others that I can mention.   He says obvious stuff but most of the the stuff happening is obvious most of the time anyway.

If you want bad commentary watch F1 motor racing on Sky, its absolutely abysmal.    The main guy cant distinguish between drivers and its a total shambles, IE -  Ferrari driver with yellow helmet is not Alonso for crying out loud.   

Didn't go down too well in the UK when he did the Vuelta...

Didn't he? I felt he was quite good for a solo.

Brits not liking having to listen to an Aussie for hours, nothing new there.

Whoever the Italian on the Gazzetta streams is, who talks with a controlled pace, I like him because I can sort of understand what he's saying. Sporza are alright too, it seems like they discuss the rider a lot.

I do like Smith and Maggie Backstead, both know the sport, and offer a really interesting perspective. Kelly now offers very little as a colour commentator. Hes been out of the sport so long (despite having a team) that he really offers very little in the way of valuable insight to a race, christ, the guy rode with foot straps in his day.

Harmon is just starting to grate on me a little. Hes got the knowledge, but hes starting to annoy me, he seems to have taken on the Duffield role of being over the top with any British riders, and his anti doping stance, although admirable is starting to get on my tits a bit as well. His overplayed biterness towards the likes of vino and valverde who have served bans is nearly as infuriating as Phil and Pauls refusal to accept that there is anything wrong with the sport. Im all for commentators being anti-doping and making it public, but they also need to learn to let go and not let it cloud their commentary.

Really enjoyed Matt Keenan during the Dauphine, to the point where i watched the last stage on (a very high quality) south african stream rather than eurosport. Does very well especially considering hes on his own.

edit: didnt realise id already posted in this thread. interestingly i said pretty much the same except i now like Matt Keenan a bit more.

Oh, Ant McCrossan.. Lovely bloke but as a commentator (but to be fair he gets given crappy race highlights packages to overdub audio onto on his own)

Kelly now offers very little as a colour commentator. Hes been out of the sport so long (despite having a team) that he really offers very little in the way of valuable insight to a race, christ, the guy rode with foot straps in his day.

Harmon is just starting to grate on me a little. Hes got the knowledge, but hes starting to annoy me, he seems to have taken on the Duffield role of being over the top with any British riders, and his anti doping stance, although admirable is starting to get on my tits a bit as well. His overplayed biterness towards the likes of vino and valverde who have served bans is nearly as infuriating as Phil and Pauls refusal to accept that there is anything wrong with the sport. Im all for commentators being anti-doping and making it public, but they also need to learn to let go and not let it cloud their commentary.

As time has gone by, I'm sliding more and more into this ballpark too. Something changed, roughly at the same time when the Brits started to win things. I find I am taking more and more compliments I used to give to them back.

Does it annoy you as well when commentators can't pronounce the riders' names correctly?

no, but it really infuriates me when commentators say an entire sentance in their normal voice and then decide to over-italianise the riders name in the middle of it.

theres no logical reason why someone would say "sitting second in the line of riders is allessandro Pettaaaaachiiiiiii"

To be honest, no. I kinda like it even, that names are pronounced differently in different languages.

I suspect I find the reverse more irritating, to be honest. When a commentator, or spelling, suddenly goes all 'native' on me. I much prefer a world where crossing a border still means something, as opposed to the uniform sausage it is becoming. I also prefer to hear a name pronounced as it makes sense to that language, over exposure to something that sounds bad in 2 languages, and often is confusing/hilarious to natives on either end of that lingual divide.

What we usually get stuck with, is someone who at best gets one or two (main) names right, and who is still totally clueless on the pronunciation of all the other names in that same language. So you kinda end up all over the place, trying to figure out with which ears you should listen to that sound that just came your way.

I pronounce my own name differently too, even spell it differently, depending on the country I am in. You kinda learn that the hard way, as I appear to have one of those forrun names that people look at and then "correct", as that certainly can't be right. Usually by adding a letter or two, even after I have spelled it.

I also discovered that I get filed in a totally different part of the alphabet here, and if anyone knows about research into the effect of your surname's position in the alphabet soup on your personality, I'd be interested to read that. Having gone from the almost the back to almost the front, it certainly feels different indeed.

no, but it really infuriates me when commentators say an entire sentance in their normal voice and then decide to over-italianise the riders name in the middle of it.

theres no logical reason why someone would say "sitting second in the line of riders is allessandro Pettaaaaachiiiiiii"

Fair enough, I see where you're both coming from.
I wouldn't like to have a commentator over-italianise (over-whateverise) riders' names, luckily I have yet to listen to one doing that (much). Rolling the Rs occasionally is the "worst" I've heard.

But when Chicchi gets pronounced "tsh*tshi" (some Anglo commentator), or riders have letters switched around (or new ones inserted that don't belong there) - "Saramontis" or "Laugutin" are two examples (both Dennis Ritter) - the hairs on my back stand up. I can live with pronouncing Dutch/Flemish Gs as normal Gs instead of the weird scratching sound they are supposed to be, and if Nikolas Maes is turned into Nikolas Mäs (also Dennis Ritter), that's OK too.
I have an issue with commentators using the wrong (second, maternal) surname for Spanish riders - Ritter calls the Izagirre brothers Insausti with annoying consequence. I mean, he never speaks of Luis Leon Gil or Joaquin Oliver either...

I should add that despite listing all these mis-pronounciations, I rate Ritter highly as a commentator.

I know I started this thread but I am starting to think some slack should be cut for them.

It must be difficult to commentate for hours on end, day after day when sometimes nothing can be happening.

Cliche mode is hard to avoid!

Although I maybe prefer that to Paul Sherwen just reading from a tourist guide every time we see a long shot of a chateaux from a helicopter.

"Well Phil, this was the residence of Theobold the 19th, in the fourteenth century and has a massive collection of boar skins in the attic"

yep - after havinga  steady diet of Phil and Paul for such a long time, Paul Sherwin, Sean Kelly - even Carlton Kirby win my approval

 

Dan Lloyd btw is as good a cycling commentator as i have ever heard. Was doing some for Eurosport before, did Vuelta for ITV yesterday.

really brilliant commentary. Knows a lot about the riders from personal experiences, and if the time is right he tells it. Not stuff everyone knows to fill the gap like - so and so won a stage of the tour once, but rather good things he knows about them from personal experiences.

My love for Jose de Cauwer knows no boundaries.

Carlton is getting better I reckon, or I am getting immune to him.

immune

he is funny though  :police:   and not in a laughing with you type of way